everyone read murderer fugitive NOW (gotham knights #26)
this issue is just. such a good frame for the ways that dick and Tim approach being Robin and also their relationship to Bruce completely differently. kills me. dick, despite everything, still has this unshakeable trust in bruce. it is the foundation of his vigilante career. I don't know that he wants it to be! but it is. he can't believe Bruce is guilty of murder because if Bruce is a man who is capable of murdering his lover then dick has spent his whole life in orbit to a man who could do that.
but Tim came into the Robin gig for a fundamentally different Bruce! not a Bruce who kills, certainly, but a Bruce who was violent and grieving and also let Tim operate pretty independently. Tim is Bruce's partner, but he's also his own Robin in a way that Dick doesn't get to be until he becomes part of the Titans.
Robin has never been a solo gig for Dick - either he's on a team or he's the other half of the dynamic duo. But for Tim Robin is an independent operator. under Bruce's mantle, sure, operating with Bruce's resources and with Bruce as a mentor and deeply important figure in his life, absolutely. but he can hold open the possibility that Bruce might have killed without it breaking him. Bruce has taught him, both intentionally and unintentionally, that adults you look up to are absolutely capable of betraying you!
(ironically, I think the person for whom a credible murder accusation in civilian life might send Tim into this kind of spiral would be Dick.)
